Smartphone tech has come a long way over the last ten years, but a few commonly requested features are still lacking. Battery life can't be measured in weeks yet, Android still doesn't have a decent iMessage competitor, and there aren't any first-party cross-platform notification mirroring services. Some of our desires might not be reasonable, but others are. And, at least in the case of notification synchronization, there are plenty of third-party services that can fill the gap. Do you use one?

Personally, I've only ever used Pushbullet, but I jumped ship back in 2015 when most of the best features got locked behind a paywall. As much as I enjoyed the convenience, the utility Pushbullet provided at the time just wasn't worth $5 a month/$40 a year for me.

But it's not the only cross-platform notification game in town these days. Microsoft's Cortana is able to sync notifications with Windows 10, as can Join. AirDroid expands things a bit more with file transfer and remote control, and the unimaginatively named Desktop Notifications works with Chrome and Chrome OS.

There are a ton of SMS-specific solutions, too, but in this case, let's keep the discussion about more general notification mirroring. And if we missed out on any apps or services you might be a fan of, we'd love to hear about them.

I also used Pushbullet until they introduced their unreasonably expensive subscription model. Now I use Cortana. I miss being able to click notification interactions on my phone but Cortana does passive notification mirroring well enough without having to run any additional software.

Gary Oberbrunner

I still use the free Pushbullet, it works fine for me. I text from my PC, get all my notifications on all my devices... What am I missing by not having the sub?

philnolan3d

It's been a while but I think one thing they took out was universal copy / paste. Where you could copy something on your phone and paste it on the PC and vice-versa.

Jason Pagliaro

This is the feature I miss the most. Still use the free version, though.

epsiblivion

100 sms per month max on free version. I almost never use it so it's fine. I can see incoming and dismiss notifications and that's enough

Interactive notifications. For example, if your phone showed a notification with YES/NO buttons that you could tap on your phone in the notification shade, those buttons would be clickable on your desktop.

How is Wear's mirroring any different than Pushbullet or any of the other similar platforms? They both take the notifications from my phone and display them on another screen.

The watch is, IMHO, even more useful, though, as I always have it on my wrist. I "occasionally" end up leaving the phone at the desk when I head out into the rest of the house and get distracted by whats on the TV and rather than returning moments later, half the day passes... But I have the watch, so if something does come in that I need to take action on in a timely manner...

MJ

I am sure notifications can be useful sometimes on a watch but it hasn't been enough for me to pull the trigger on one. I work in IT so spend most of my day in front of a PC and I have a PC at home. I actually may message more from a PC than my phone. I am not that married to my phone so can take a piss and not worry if leave my phone at my desk. I can see a watch being an alternative/supplement for notifications but not a replacement for them on PCs.

Sandeep Raghuraman

The reply facility is better now on watches thanks to Android Wear 2.0 showing a keyboard (awkward to type).

MJ

Please, I trying to be serious here. Sorry, I am not a masochist so have no desire to type on a watch.

Francois Nguyen

I'm not a masochist and I do reply regularly on a keyboard on AW 1.5, where keyboard support doesn't exist. You need to train muscle memory to get used to a non-QUERTY keyboard layout, though.

MJ

OK than...

philnolan3d

Not the same thing but it was one thing I really loved when I had my Gear Fit2. Getting a notification or a phone call and just flipping my wrist to see it. Sadly the band broke and the watch got lost forever somewhere.

Lars Jeppesen

Yep - loving my Gear Fit 2 Pro

Francois Nguyen

Me too. I currently use Android Wear 1.5 on LG watch urbane 1st gen. I work in a retail pharmacy where I frequently switch between 4 PCs at work, so notification mirroring on the desktop isn't a good experience lol.

jayp33

I'm also still rocking Wear 1.5. Back in the day I switched the original LG G Watch for the Sony Smartwatch 3 because it was promised Wear 2.0. But with the bad design decisions in Wear 2.0 I'm actually happy the update was cancelled.

m-p{3}

Pebble Time Steel + Gadgetbridge 😉

Kirk

I use pushbullet too, but it's basically a dead project, no new development (or even a blog post) in more than a year. Would love to switch if someone makes something similar

Blane Stroud

Join is basically the same thing, at least in my experience. Universal copy paste, mirrored notification, actionable notification, etc. It does everything I want it to do, and the dev is VERY active, even going so far as to make test APKs with features you request within hours of posting on the forums. All the syncing is done by connecting to your google drive. I'll say it had a rocky start with it's original betas, but it's been really solid for awhile now. There's also big bonuses if you use Tasker, as it's the same dev, so lots of integration with tasker stuff.

You do have to dive into the settings for some stuff though. It works well enough initially, but there's a lot of options. Making the clipboard automatically go to specific devices, limiting notification apps and on what devices they appear, and various other things.

someone755

I used to but then it started failing every so often. It would require the phone to connect to a network and send the notification to the other device, and this would constantly drain my battery.

I just keep my phone on my desk, under the monitor, WiFi/mobile data off. If it's an internet thing (facebook, telegram etc) I'm getting a notification on the PC anyways, and if it's an SMS or phone call I'll see the flashing phone and pick it up.

Blane Stroud

I used Pushbullet until the crazy pricing. Now I use Join. It had a bit of a rocky start when it was in beta, but it's extremely good now, and the dev is VERY active. I'm in the beta for it, and he normally responds with fixes or feature requests in the beta within hours. Takes feedback super well, and the app is just wonderful these days. I highly recommend it. The default settings don't mirror Pushbullet though, and the initial setup is not as seamless. You will have to jump into the app settings for a few minutes at the beginning to set up things like universal copy/paste (setting it to automatic and setting the devices to receive it), limiting notification mirroring to only specific devices and apps, and some other things.

Yeah, Join is pretty good. The UI could be better, but it does its job well.

I'm surprised that Google still hasn't bothered to get behind notification mirroring. It's a pretty obvious and useful feature to have. Having to clear the same notifications off multiple devices is not a good experience.

(Then again, they still can't figure out how to just make a single messaging app that does everything is needs to do, so who knows if anyone's actually steering the ship over there.)

>I'm surprised that Google still hasn't bothered to get behind notification mirroring

We were supposed to get it several years ago with like Jelly Bean or KitKat, and they dropped the idea entirely, leaving it up for the third party apps to fill in the blank

IVBela

Was waiting for Firefox addon since Join was released. Now that Firefox killed XUL support all hope is lost. :(

MJ

I didn't have a problem with paying for Pushbullet but that it became less reliable for me as soon as it was a paid service so canceled after one month. Now, it looks like they stopped development.

epsiblivion

I just use it for phone notifications on my pc and sending push notifications from a server. hope they don't shut down the service.

MJ

Maybe I should have keep Pushbullet just for that but guess I was mad on how it all went down with them. Google should buy them...

makapav

Is there a limit on the phone notifications mirroring (without sending SMSs)?

ribogushter

I don't think so.

epsiblivion

not that I know of.

m-p{3}

I use IFTTT webhooks to send push notification from a server (script sending a curl HTTP GET request with some variable) to my device, if that's something that could help.

Jacob Fulbright

I love Join. The developer is always very responsive any time an issue is raised. The features are pretty fantastic. No complaints.

roberto.elena

Sometimes, specially after an update, it can be a little buggy and trying to figure out what is happening can be a pain in the ass, but in general it's a 9/10 app, and so is the developer.

Disclaimer: I'm enrolled in the beta channel.

Gustavo Parrado

I just wish it would show a notification when someone is calling, it's the only thing pushbullet did that join doesn't. (unless I'm out of the loop on how it's done)

Jacob Fulbright

It gives you call notifications. I just rejected a call from a telemarketer earlier today from my desktop. That may be a beta feature (like @robertoelena:disqus, I also signed up for the beta channel of Join).

Gustavo Parrado

I'm getting on that beta channel NOW. Thanks

PetiePal

Join is amazing. Pushbullet was great until they got super greedy with pricing. I also didn't want a monthly recurring bill. Give me a lifetime price and I'd have been happy

Mike

Coming from a long time Apple user, I do kind of miss all of my cross platform notifications and being able to reply to my SMS and iMessages from any device I'm one was one of the things that kept me with them for just a tad bit longer than I wanted...

But now that I'm on Android, and now that I'm a bit older, I've basically come to realize that I prefer to turn off all of my notifications. The only notifications I keep on are financial one for fraud prevention. I really don't need to see my work crap immediately on my day off. I also don't need to be alert that my village is under attack or that Trump tweeted some crazy again. I'll get to it when my time warrants it. Same goes for SMS. If it's truly an emergency a phone call will be made. All other things can be replied at my leisure.

InsanityOnABun

I've moved to MightyText. By the name it's obviously texting-centric, but it also does general notification mirroring.

Benjamin Haube

I hate that I get notifications for services on multiple devices. I want as little notifications as possible, and I definitely don't want them to sync across devices .

Alan Winston

MightyText - had used them for SMS before PushBullet added that, and switched back a while ago when I got fed up with PB and discovered that in the meantime, MightyText had added notifications.

Free feature. Also, MT had large discounts over for the holidays and/or new users, such that I was quite tempted. Then they irritated me by dropping the free sent message limit from 200 to 150 (cf PB at 100), which made me just cranky enough to not sign up.

Rob

Never use mysms. You can only restore 1000 messages back to your phone. All your other messages are hijacked by the service. They don't advertise that exactly. I hate mysms, worst service ever.

Bill Van

Finally!! MightyText is mentioned here. I have used MightyText for years and love it.

MJ

I used to when Pushbullet was a thing but today just sync my SMS messages to the desktop. Wish Google had a native solution as all the poll choices suck in one way or another.

misc

Nope. Just adds complication that never works quite as well as I'd like. I would rather have native notifications on every device or at least mirroring built into the apps.

Romain Lecomte

I've got a Google Voice number so I get my notification wherever Hangouts is connected (Tablet, phone and PC).

WitnessG

I don't understand why Google won't make this a native feature with something like Chrome. The only reason I'm using pushbullet is for the notification mirroring.

someone755

No, please don't force more Chrome-exclusive features on us! All Chrome ever did for me was store massive amounts of data on my C drive (my SSD with limited storage and write cycles), even though I only ever used Chrome for the Hangouts window feature it provided.
If anything they should make it a separate program, like Drive and Photos. None of this Chrome nonsense for those of us who don't use Chrome.

The big deal is that the feature would be limited to Chrome users, right?

someone755

... That one of the most advertised new features to Android would be limited to Chrome users? I thought I was clear enough...

Noah Momblanco

Pushbullet still works great for me because I use allo far more than I text, so I get nowhere near the text limit on the free level.

Gordon Spurgeon Spooner

Too much of a security vulnerability for me. If there was an option that was *both* open source *and* had end to end encryption, I would try it (even pay for it), but none of the options I've looked at seem safe enough to run my notifications through.

MJ

I can understand messaging with E2E encryption (but most of my communication is via SMS) but are your notifications that important? Are you a drug kingpin or secret agent or something? Can you give me a real world example of how this is a security vulnerability?

Aquaman

Well, Pushbullet enables you to respond to SMS messages on your computer, so that's an added bonus.

makapav

Path to overcoming 2 factor backup if it's setup with SMS.

MJ

You shouldn't use SMS for anything important...communication or security wise if not sure why that is a factor.

I used to use Air Droid. It offers more features but isn't as nice to use I think. More complicated.

ribogushter

If you need MMS, yes.

Jason Bell

Life is better without so many notifications. After cutting out 95% of them completely, I found there wasn't any reason to mirror the few remaining.

Aquaman

True. That's why I use Pushbullet less than before

Lars Jeppesen

I second that. Even better: drop out of social networks and you gain lots of time.

Schwim Dandy

Even better... Cave life. Soo much time now for clubbing brontosauri and finger painting with my poo.

Lars Jeppesen

lol ok

Björn Lundén

I use Pushbullet for sending links between devices but disable any notification mirroring.

Rony

I used to use Pushbullet only for SMS but then i switched to Pulse for SMS. Besides that, the only other notification i get that comes in on my phone as well is emails.

Raimu

Eh, I bit the bullet and paid for Pushbullet annual. Psychologically the price was high but otherwise - - you tend to drop money monthly on less useful things.

Тарас Мукин

My phone distracts me a lot already, I'm glad I can just put it away somewhere from time to time and do some actual work on a computer

philnolan3d

I still use the free version of pushbullet, though I was disappointed when they took away features and put them behind the pay wall.

instinct

Used to use Pushbullet. Use Join now. I love it.

Bewear

Personally, I like to keep my devices separate from each other.

Renzo Pacheco

Desktop Notifications gets the job done. It's simple and provides the right features. No bloat, no bs. You just install the app, the Chrome extension and basically forget about it, makes it seem like it's a native Android-Chrome feature.

TedPhillips

i used pushbullet for a while, but got better results by directing my traffic over to messaging apps that sync'd themselves across devices (ie: hangouts, google voice, etc), and stopped caring about syncing arbitrary apps' notifications (getting those on my wrist now is good enough).

edit: been on my honey-do to take a stab at join.

Jim

What the hell is notification mirroring and WHY would I want it?

Benjamin Haube

It displays all the notifications from your phone on every device you own. As for why you or anyone for that matter would want it? I can't answer that for you.

Jim

Thanks, Benjamin. I don't see a need for this for me. I was just curious.

Lol I don't see a need for it either. I want as little notifications as possible, and I definitely don't need to see them on every device I own.

Tsene

KDE Connect for me. Very useful tool specially when you forget your phone somewhere in the house.

cadtek91

I use free Pushbullet, mostly for the texting and the main function of sending receiving stuff.

Vincent van Dijk

Currently I use Samsung Flow since it doesnt require a Samsung notebook and since recent not even a TPM anymore. It works as advertised and supports file transfer. For my needs its all I need and I haven't encountered any problems yet.

JLV90

Nope if I want to be away from my phone I’ll be away from my phone.

steelew

Push bullet but not for notifications

Hotfrost

I used to use Pushbullet, but switched to Join now. It was a bit hard to use in the beginning but I've got it set up to work just like Pushbullet now.

J3R3MY_H

If you install an Android app on your Chromebook that also lives on your phone, you kind of get this functionality. It's not mirrored technically but you still get a notification at the same time as your phone app.

use Join by joaoapps works very well never had any issues with it even if man whish for more ways that just use storages like Google Drive dont relly use that service.

ro964

Using paid Pushbullet account. Also have used AirDroid, but keep coming back to PB. I'd love to see a first-party mirroring service from El Goog. That would be welcomed.

ddb

Think that I read that Android Messages is soon to incorporate message mirroring..

ddb

My needs are basic, and the free service by Pushbullet suffice..

Lucas de Eiroz ™

I also used Pushbullet, but now most of my apps also have their version as Windows 10 apps or Chrome notification. The ones that don't do either, I don't need to see them on my computer.

kesongpinoy

I used it for SMS mainly but now I use Pulse SMS which offers optional and reasonable subscription model for syncing functionality. Been using it for a year, never looked back since. Still use Pushbullet for the occasional link pushes

mcdonsco

Mirror for all? No, because all my apps for email, Facebook etc are all on all of my devices, so they have their own notifications.

But, with sms being tied to my phone number, it can ONLY natively work with one device on Android. So, I use mysms for mirroring and texting from tablet and computer.

This is why I absolutely cannot for the life of me figure out why Google still doesn't have an iMessage equivilant for Android (though it appears that may be about to change) as it's the ONE THING that needs it of all the communications methods.

Inexcusable.

Dayle Hudson

I read they will sometime this month

enaybee

Use Airdroid and Wear .

meh…

I use T-Mobile's Digits service to use a duplicate SIM card for use in my #2 phone, but still absolute favorite, the BlackBerry Priv. My primary phone is a Galaxy S8+. So yeah, that's what I use. I'm guessing others use similar competition number sync services too, through AT&T and Verizon.

Theot

Been using Pulse SMS for a couple weeks now. Pretty happy with it.

SeaWolf

The downside is that Pulse only mirror the SMS notifications, not every notification from every app, like PushBullet does.

Theot

Hmm, I'm sure some people have a need for that but I guess I'm not sure why I'd want that. When I'm on the computer I have my Gmail open and can check anything else I need to. The only reason I pick up the phone is for texts or calls.

James Brown

PushBullet for me, though ever since Android Wear, I have relied on it much less.

I use Pushbullet and am more than happy to pay the subscription. It is the glue that holds my smart home together. The notification and file sharing piece is a very small piece of my usage. I use the Tasker integration to trigger tasks from one device to another and use the smart things integration for greater control of notifications (and to use notifications to trigger events). I love being able to send notifications to specific devices on my network or to all devices depending on how much or little interaction I want. Being able to accept 2 form texts right from my computer is a nice bonus.

Used Pushbullet when it was free then I stopped altogether. Also because even with most of them saying they are secure and nobody can read the notifications while in transit I don't easily trust them...
But recently I got a MiBand 2 and I like to have notifications on it, but it is so limited. I am evaluating to buy a smart watch (Android/Gear S3) to have even a better experience.

I use MightyText to be able to view snd reply to SMS on my PC. it was a surprise bonus to see it mkrror other notifications on my phoph.

Tristian Hill

I've got Cortana set up because I have a Windows 10 PC, but barely use it because of how janky it is, and how it can take literally hours for mobile notifications to show up on the computer. It can come in handy for texts when it works, but most of the other apps have desktop counterparts that don't need notification mirroring anyway.

I use pushbullet for sharing links, content etc. among my devices. I don't use it for Notification mirroring.

primalxconvoy

I use "Notifications for Android TV", as the platform features gimped notifications. It's the only way I know who's messaging me while I'm using my Shield TV, which is quite embarrassing for Google, IMO.

Most of apps have its own sync, Facebook, Twitter, etc... For copying text or other messages between machines I'm using Google Keep. Pushbullet is still installed but disabled.

durham_minion

I use Pulse!!! The best one out there!

Garrett Bridges

I use MightyText. Originally just to send messages from my desktop, but their notification mirroring and auto photo upload/backup are fun too. Very quick to respond to questions as well.

ast00

All of these things are just bad. Pay, connect manually, lose connection, no automatic photo syncing, etc.

I wouldn't use them if they were free.

chadochocinqo

I also used pushbullet for some time at work because i didn't have to install a program and i was able to reply to messages on my phone from my pc. over time my messaging apps changed and pushbullet did not support this. now i only use pulse sms that comes with a web client and send notifs through chrome. one time premium purchase of $4. works like a charm.

PetiePal

Join has been my favorite for a long time. The most use I get out of it isn't so much the notification mirroring but the ability to send text messages quickly from my PC/browser or keep a pop out window for SMS open.

Also pushing Chrome tabs to and from my mobile devices makes life very easy.

Can't believe so few users use Cortana's notification mirroring. I bet it's because Microsoft is the only company worse than Google at letting people know about its software's features.

It's about as close as Windows users can get to Apple's iMessage system that Apple fans rave about. I'm at my desktop more than I'm using my phone, so I actually send and reply to most of my text messages from Windows through Cortana.

TattoozNTech

Pushbullet but i don't (and won't ever) pay them for anything.

Joakim Melkersson

Like many, I used Pushbullet until they went insane. I've used some others over the years as well, but they all seem to eventually become too bloated or adopt some crazy business model that I can't support when all I really want is SMS syncing. But I do text a lot, and being able to do it from a computer is convenient, so I'm looking forward to Google's solution (which I've always been wondering why they weren't doing).

EDIT: Oh, notification mirroring. I read that as SMS mirroring...

Dragan Cuca

Have you tried "X-Notify"? I am using it for some time and I am happy with it.

Hrvoje Sostaric

Tried it, and loved it!

Michael Shorey

i prefer my notifications stay on my phone and watch. i have a tablet but it's purely for media and some gaming. i don't need notifications syncing to it.